


if I had a heart I could love you

by girlsarewolves



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Blood Drinking, F/F, Femslash, Gen, Non-researched depictions of witchcraft, Patricide, horror femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Muriel smiles. 'Blood is the price to our magic,' her mother had told her long, long ago. 'And what you sacrifice, it must be precious.' Pre-movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if I had a heart I could love you

**Author's Note:**

> Saw the movie. Loved the movie. Need to write all the fic. Especially for the ladies.
> 
> Warnings: Non-graphic depictions of death, violence, human sacrifice, blood drinking, patricide. Non-researched depictions of witchcraft. I just took what we learned in the movie about that universe's witches and ran with it.

* * *

Muriel is almost twelve when they burn her mother.  
  
Her father is on his knees, screaming her mother's human name as the flames engulf the now silent, melting body. His hands are bound, and the villagers are preparing to lash him to the pyre next.  
  
She is still and calm, like her mother taught her to be. Her eyes are warm, her vision is blurry, but her chin does not quiver, and her mind does not derail as she whispers the first spell her mother made her learn.  
  
The villagers scream and run and cry to their distant and silent God when her mother's pyre grows wild and spreads, flames whipping out as if to clutch those closest and drag them down into the hell they fear so feverishly.  
  
'Fire is their weapon, Muriel. So you must learn power over their weapon. But you will not master it until I am dead.'  
  
Muriel does not cry when she waits until she can no longer hear her mother's heartbeat before she punishes the sheep. She does not cry when her father slaps her later for letting her mother die. Her voice does not waver when she tells him, 'A sacrifice was necessary.'  
  
She cried when she was five, and she woke in a cold sweat from a glimpse into the future. She cried in the morning when her mother told her it had to happen.  
  
Their weapon is hers now, and the fire burns her tears before they can fall.

* * *

It is just over three years later when her father dies at her hand, a willing sacrifice for her rise to power.  
  
He has been dead since the night they burned her mother, and only his shell has lingered to shield Muriel from suspicion. He whispers her mother's name the moment her wand pierces his heart. He barely even flinches.  
  
Muriel does not cry. Her eyes are not warm, her vision is not blurry. Her lips slowly curl into a smile as she carves out his heart and holds it above her, head tilted back and mouth open to taste the blood as it falls.  
  
'Blood is the price to our magic, my daughter. That is why we sacrifice. And what you sacrifice, it must be precious,' her mother had told her. For magic will not accept leftovers and waste.  
  
She dances after the ceremony, drunk on blood and power rushing through her body. She spins in circles and stares at the night sky and the full moon so bright it blinds her. She laughs with arms widespread, and she cries because it is almost too much, and it is beautiful.  
  
When she stares at her reflection later, the rot in her eyes and her teeth and her fingernails is gone.  
  
The others, they flock to her.

* * *

She is almost fifty and not a day over thirty when she sees Adrianna for the first time.  
  
Muriel is so taken with the white witch that her eyes feel warm, and her vision blurs. She is shaken to her core, and there is a foreign sensation in her chest, in her abdomen, in her fingers and toes, that will not leave her.  
  
It pleases her when Adrianna tells her, many nights later, that she felt the same.  
  
They do not admit what they are for days though they both know the other's secret; but they both know these are secrets that each one must speak freely. They skirt the issue and talk of meaningless chatter. The little things in life that make them happy, the still moments between sleeping and waking that are full of memories and unspoken possibilities.  
  
Those are the happy days, when truth is forgotten and only want exists.  
  
When they finally confess, Muriel cannot miss the way her white witch's eyes drop at the words, 'dark witch.' It is both insult and injury.  
  
It is the first and last time she conjures fire without meaning to.  
  


* * *

Muriel does not remember how old she is by the time she tracks her former lover down to a rotting cottage.  
  
Adrianna is swollen with the child of a walking meatsack, all flushed skin and honeymoon love as her husband toils like the servant he truly is. There is human love and decay lingering over the home, and the scent of it offends Muriel's senses.  
  
She does not cry. Her eyes are dry, her vision is swimming, and all she feels is the still rage from the night she took the humans' weapon for her own. She retreats into the forest and whispers the words that will bless the chances of the child being a girl.  
  
The others are fearful and restless in their lairs, and though Muriel wishes she could carve her lover's heart out, a daughter will have to do. The blood moon will come, soon. Muriel is patient; she can bide her time until the moment is right. And then she will bless her sisters with the humans' weapon, freedom from it and power over it.  
  
Muriel smiles. 'Blood is the price to our magic,' her mother had told her long, long ago. 'And what you sacrifice, it must be precious.'  
  
Soon, she promises herself, she will dance with arms widespread and tears in her eyes at her magic's beauty.


End file.
